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Scott I totally agree with your views about happiness. Your first chain of thought says it all, "humans never seem fully satisfied. Humans can never seem to get all of what they want because they always seem to want more; they always think of something else they want." It's so true and when you have what you craved for, you want something else, another challenge maybe. For example, what if you are the type who easily picks up a skill at work. You are happy that you finally could do the task and bang you are bored and unhappy because its lost its appeal and you want something else. Seeking happiness is hard labour.

"If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn." -- Ignacio Estrada

I didn't have to read very far before I came to the point where you expressed much the same thinking as I've encountered elsewhere regarding Happiness and desire, without which, so the claim goes, we wouldn't be motivated--have the will--to do anything. What about survival? Believe it or not, emotions have survival value. Characteristic or chronic emotions are, in my opinion, directly related to issues of overpopulation. Characteristic or chronic Happy behavior (wide open face, great big grin, bouncing off the walls, laughing, sense of humor) reflects conditions of overcrowding growing up. The instinct of such people is to flee. A Happy person is a flighty person. This is experienced in a Family environment, or the equivalent. Their basic need is for Air--Space.

Sad people (less open face--the expression of surprise--slowness, like slogging through wet cement, and tears and crying) grew up in relative poverty, and are focussed on the basic need for Food & Water resources, instinctively dodging--trying to get out of, or from under, something. This applies to behavior at funerals as well. This is also experienced in a Family environment, or the equivalent.

Indifferent people (comfortably open eyes and closed mouth, mechanical, routine behavior) grew up in stifling conditions--that is, in virtually immobilizing conditions (Japan, for example). As with Happy behavior, the issue is Air--Space, and such people are inclined, instinctively, to hide. This is experienced in a societal environment.

Mad people (to me likely to screw up their faces in a decidedly closed expression--tight-lipped, grim) grew up in hardship, with Food & Water resources stretched to the limit. Fighting is consistent with an "Every man for himself"-mentality.

Now, I realize that this calls into question long-held beliefs about the self or soul, but come on--isn't survival in reality just as much a concern for us as it is for that which we call animals?

Happiness is awful. It hardly ever lasts. After it's gone, you're depressed and all you want is happiness again. People speak of the happiest day of their lives. They almost never say "never been better" in a literal sense. For me "never been worse" is the most honest reply i could give to "how are you today?"

I think there's pleasure and elation. I think it all comes from sense experience. The whole spiritual happiness thing is a trap. People wanting spiritual happiness are better off picking up a heroin addiction.

I don't like being depressed and suicidal all day, but at least I'm not happy.

In terms of the source of happiness; first I would redefine happiness as just "avoidance of pain". Then happiness becomes a day in which you've avoided pain.

The whole human condition is one of luxurious boredom. In our endeavor to avoid pain, we have --- modern society. All of our social ailments arise from the things we have enstated that help us avoid the realities of life. The happiest people are those who have toiled all their life and have grown resistant to pain. Happiness is just an immunity to pain. But remove the pain and the immunity disappears too.

Hunger is pain. Finding food is happiness. Eating food is delight. Being full is meaningless - existing with no reason to exist.

Loneliness is pain. Finding someone is happiness. Falling in love is delight. Relationships are torture - existing with no further need to find happiness.

Life is pain. Ending life is happiness. Being dead is delightful. Non-existence is meaningless - ceasing to exist with no further cause to bring about life.

-- Updated October 10th, 2013, 12:47 pm to add the following --

We hurt the ones we love most because they have made our lives unfulfilled. We want to get rid of them so that we can leech happiness out of a different relationship. But we know that we are in love, that it would break our hearts and we would become lonley again if we did.

It's like eating chocolate pie day after day. It ceases to make you happy. And you hate your self and the pie for what you once wanted out of it and yourself. It's addiction. You can't have your cake and eat it too. "When in Rome..."

To be is to do. To do is to be. Do-be, do-be, do-be, do. - the philosophical importance of Scoobie-do is to Scoobie-be!

Is knowing what happiness is important, or is it seeing and understanding the source of our unhappiness? Is happiness the opposite of unhappy, or is it a creation of thought, an illusion? Thought being unhappy, miserable, or fearful wants to free itself from it. So, is that freedom happiness or something different? Is freedom from disorder, chaos, conflict, and misery happiness or order? I ask these questions because what you start with is what you end up with. If you start with disorder, conflict or unhappiness, you will end up with disorder, conflict, unhappiness REGARDLESS if it is called something else. That which is corrupt can only create different types or forms of corruption. It cannot create the absence of corruption.